The heat inside Hester Quill’s second-story chambers above the bookbinders’ lane was thick, dry, and smelling of very thirsty paper, birch-bark kindling, and strong sheep fat. In the corner, the small cast-iron hearth was glowing cherry-red, fed by chunks of high-grade hard coal that crackled softly. They burned up the draft.
Tomas stripped off his mud-caked wool tunic, laying his bare arms on the scrubbed pine table. Nurse Venn, who had been summoned from the Willow Stair hospice at four in the morning, knelt beside him with a basin of warm vinegar water and a jar of elderberry ointment.
With gentle, cold and exact care, Venn worked the soaked leather wrist brace free from Tomas’s left arm. The skin underneath was mottled crimson and white, covered with small, watery blisters where ninety-pound steam had pierced the seams. She washed the scalds with vinegar. She murmured under her breath as she spread the soothing grease over the raw flesh, then bound the limb in layers of clean, dry linen before re-buckling the brace over the dressing.
Across the table, Renn Tal sat swaddled in two heavy woolen shawls, his feet resting in a tub of warm mustard water, his hands cupping a clay pot mug of steaming chicory tea. His breathing had eased, though a deep, dry rattle persisted in his chest whenever he spoke.
